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Friday, December 6, 2013

Kin’youbi Mosaic Returns! 12/6/13 Weekly Ramblings

NaNoWriMo is over and was a success! I have 50,000 words of story written (with much editing needed, mind you), and you can head over to my “normal” blog, Frank Sun of Hawaii, to read some early chapters as well as learn how to read more.

Unfortunately, NaNoWriMo has come with the side effect of horribly falling behind on this season’s anime. I’ve been able to follow five shows as they are airing (Gingitsune, Outbreak Company, Non Non Biyori, Little Busters! Refrain, and Yowamushi Pedal), I’ve seen some episodes here and there of the others… and I’ve still got about 3-5 episodes of each of the other shows to watch. Yep. Good thing my holiday schedule is coming up, which gives me time to take care of various things…

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If there is one short series (that is, a show with 2-5 minute episodes) that I highly recommend watching, it is Yama no Susume, available on Crunchyroll by its official English name Encouragement of Climb. It tells the story of a girl who has become afraid of heights, and who meets up again with her childhood friend, a girl who loves hiking and mountain climbing, and how the two of them get back into climbing. It’s a cute, charming little series that is also a bit educational if you want to learn more about mountain climbing. It’s only 12 episodes (13 if you want to look for the OVA) at three and a half minutes each, so if you have some time, why not check it out?

The reason I bring up this series is that a second season has been green-lit… and it will consist of a half-year (about 25 episodes) of 15-minute episodes; that is effectively a full series! I can’t wait for this, and it is easily one of my most anticipated shows of next year.

And if you like cute girls shows, you'd be a fool to miss this. (Official key visual for 2nd season.)

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A new anime project has appeared on Kickstarter, looking for your support. Kenji Itoso, who has worked under folks like Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon, is looking to produce a 30-minute film called Santa Company. The film imagines “Santa Claus” as a large corporate company with three departments—a home security department, a reindeer-raising and navigation department, and an e-commerce department—that on Christmas work together to deliver presents to children. The story itself seems to focus on Noel, a 12-year-old girl who stumbles into this company and her adventures with the folks that work there.

It looks to be a cute, family friendly Christmas special, and Itoso plans to have it finished by Christmas 2014 to show to children in the Fukushima area who were affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The Kickstarter itself would produce the film in Japanese with English subtitles, which would be available on DVD and Blu-ray as well as with digital downloads. Stretch goals include Finnish and French subtitles, a Deluxe Blu-ray/DVD version, and an English dub.

It’s hard to say how good this will end up being, but a child-friendly Christmas anime would be nice, and the art is good, so I’ll be supporting this.

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Finally, if you’re looking for some anime to gift to your friends—or yourself—check out RightStuf’s Holiday Sale. They have lots of titles at incredible discounts, and every day they will add more titles to that list. Some things to note:

-Orders of $49 or more qualify for free shipping. Keep in mind, though, that free shipping does take longer (3-10 business days) and depending on when you order, you might not get the item until after Christmas. Also, orders can take about 2 business days to be shipped.

-The process is the smoothest for delivering to the same address as your billing address. If the shipping and billing addresses are different, you will probably have to deal with some extra steps that can delay things.

-Sale items cannot be further discounted through coupons or the site’s Got Anime? membership discount.

-Some sale items come in limited quantities, and will go fast once they are put up for sale.

Of course, there are sales elsewhere and you can always check out other sites like Amazon, which is perhaps better for faster gifting. Still, RightStuf is another option, and a solid one with their low prices and good customer service. And even if you do not plan on buying anime for anyone else, it might not be a bad time to buy some anime for yourself…